


Watching Him

by ahhhhrexa



Category: Football RPF, Men's Football RPF
Genre: Character Study, FC Barcelona, Football | Soccer, Gen, Other, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 07:59:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13783188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahhhhrexa/pseuds/ahhhhrexa
Summary: The way you and him meet was a happy accident; a moment between two strangers that could have gone one way or another. He likes to tell you otherwise; says it is fate, like the stars aligned, pushed them together. Maybe it was both. He and you made a decision based on a random thing, a hunch perhaps, something.





	Watching Him

**Author's Note:**

> This all came about while I was in a groupchat with some friends of mine. It was supposed to be one little paragraph about him and then it just evolved into something bigger. This is the first time I've written a You/Character kind of fic. Enjoy this because this shows how I see Pep and how I write him in any of my fics.

No one is more frustrating than Josep Guardiola. This is a man who enjoys being the talk of the town even though he adamantly insists that he doesn’t. He likes to read the tabloids then criticizes them for following him too much. He’s a scholar yet an amateur at love. He’s a storyteller yet he can be blind to what is real and right in front of him.

 

The way you and him meet was a happy accident; a moment between two strangers that could have gone one way or another. He likes to tell you otherwise; says it is fate, like the stars aligned, pushed them together. Maybe it was both. He and you made a decision based on a random thing, a hunch perhaps, and only one possible outcome could be.

 

You can see it clearly. You’ve gone over this story before. He’s told you and you’ve told him.

 

-

 

He spots you first.

 

You’re both enjoying the setting here. This place, this somewhere, is easy and provincial; a kind place not marred by the influx of tourists. The population consists of relaxed people content to go about their day without the hassles of a rushed atmosphere.

 

He knows you’re not from here, sees the way you walk with eyes alit with curiosity as you take in everything your eyes sets upon, trying to capture each piece of culture and history completely. He likes that, sees an outsider, much like him, and he can’t help but stare.

 

You don’t give him a second glance at first. Why would you? You’re alone, far from home, in a country not your own. He might be trouble. He might be a creep. Why risk that kind of danger? Then again, maybe he isn’t even looking at you. He could be just looking at the other people walking by, or maybe at this peculiar crack on the wall of the local stadium.

 

You should just keep walking. But you don’t. You stop at some vender to look over the t-shirts without actually seeing them. His stare must be on you still for you can feel a sensation sneak onto your body. Why did you stop? You’re leaving in a day so you should ignore him and go.

 

Don’t look back at him.

 

Yet you can’t help but want to look back.

 

And so you do.

 

\---

 

He’s reading to you.

You don’t quite understand, but it’s soothing and haunting all at the same time. This is Catalan to you, a strange concept, and an almost frenetic type of thing, something that enraptures you from the first syllable. This must be written by a Catalan, for a Catalan, and rightly read by a Catalan.

 

Such is the ferocity and the honesty of the reading that the blunt edges of its truth cut you. Something is at a loss there like a missing chord in a broken song. The missteps in tone, the little rushes, and the intake of breath by him shoot you with a yearning.

 

He looks sad now, but accepting. Each word he reads becomes alive, powerful in their emphasis, and you let the textures of each word breach your skin and flow through your veins. Like a painter, he says them, each sentence a brushstroke. You, his canvass, become still as the blank spaces is filled.

 

He’s a man of art. He supports it in all its incarnations. He makes it when he writes, adds to it when he sings, and cements it into the world when he speaks. But he never understands the art that his him. How when you hear him say those words, how they sound like a symphony, how statues are built and honored when he speaks.

 

Then again, maybe he does know. For when he finishes the chapter, he looks up at you, his lips twitch, and you suddenly can’t breathe.

 

\---

 

You’re on a beach. He’s lounging on the blanket beside you. His eyes are closed and his face is stuck in this odd mix of being content and restless at the same time.

 

This isn’t all that surprising. He never really looks like he’s completely at ease. It must be tiring to be so wary; to be so alert constantly as if someone might come at him even when he’s with someone he says he trusts so much.

 

You lay your head on his chest, feel him rise and fall, and listen to his heartbeat. It’s steady yet irregular, like a man caught between a rock and a hard place, so unsure of whether to stay and relax or to prepare for a long and quick run.

 

Sometimes you want to admonish him for that, tell him that he has no need to fear, that there’s nothing to worry about, but you don’t. Why would you when you’re used to that fear just like he is? Why would you do that when it’s that same fear that makes him hold you so tightly?

 

It makes him start singing in your language, one that he learned so easily, and he sings of the ocean, of the wind that pushes the sails, and of a boat gliding on the water. You sense it’s all a metaphor, maybe of you or of home, or something he has yet to find the courage to speak of.

 

You like to think you’re the ocean and he’s the wind, and the boat is the relationship. But sometimes, when his voice gets low and sad, you see him as sea captain, commanding a rugged ship, while negotiating with the water and the winds, not fully in control of where he’s headed.

 

Or maybe it’s simpler than that.

 

You're the creatures in the sky watching what's down below.

 

\---

 

He loses a game.

 

He’s frustrated but he’s not one to yell. Instead he stays in the locker room, half crouched yet not fully kneeling, up against the corner, looking at his hands almost despondently. Even though he doesn’t speak, you can see him going over everything from tactics to weather to crowd noise to the way the grass is cut. He’s going over and over them trying to figure out what went wrong and what he could have done to have prevented it all.

 

Maybe you should sit on the other side; wait on the small bench by the showers and keep watch. You could give him some time, let the inner debate go on, and when the time is ripe, say fifteen minutes, he’ll stand up and tell you it’s time to go. That has happened before, but you have a feeling this will go in a more difficult direction.

 

In his coach mode, he’s different when out on the pitch. He’s even more different when he’s a coach thinking he’s alone. He traps himself in a hurricane of divisive emotions after a loss. He remembers things during this time. Probably of home, of old friendships won and lost, and maybe he’s thinking about regrets too.

 

On the pitch, it’s a battle to him; a battle for peace, and each loss takes him a step backwards to what he wants to get away from.

 

Seeing him like this saddens you. The game is more to him than it is to others. How can something he love like this stir up such conflicting reactions from him? You believe the game started off as pure, but devolved into something strange. The competition that once gave thrills of rejuvenation now takes and drains.

 

You could wait and ignore what lies underneath. He thinks you can’t see it, but you do. You always have. This thing is as much a part of him as it is breathing. Yes, you could wait and enable him to deny facing that thing.

 

Can you wait any longer? Can you really?

 

You rush to him, cradle his head in your hands, and you make him look at you. He’s not crying but he clearly wants to. He pulls himself away from you; he gets up and walks past you. You can hear his feet getting further away. You need to say something before he’s out of your sight, out of reach with those walls of him higher than before.

You can’t let him push you away like this. If you’re not careful, he’ll fall and when Pep starts to fall, he doesn’t know how to get up.

 

So you speak up, you say his full name. You tell him that he’s running again. You say he can’t keep running. You tell him he’s running from a loss. You say he’s running from a loss that doesn’t have to do with the game.

 

He stops. The room becomes still, the oxygen seems to be sucked out from between them, and an uncomfortable sweat falls down your forehead. He turns to you and goes red.

 

He’s angry now; a type of anger that makes his skin look harsh, eyes look wild, and his hands clench in and out into a fist. For a second, you feel fear. For all the sweetness he gives you, seeing him like this, knowing what’s under there, built by the past he tries to not to acknowledge, you wonder that maybe you can’t reach him this time.

 

You say his name again, his full name, over and over with all of your heart. Slowly, bit-by-bit, with each urgent way you speak his name, he relaxes, albeit only partly. You walk, closing the once immeasurable gap, and he falls into your arms.

 

\---

 

You ask him about a lot of things.

 

You cuddle on the couch, let old reruns of a 90’s show quietly play, and you ask him about old loves. You don’t specify on what or whom you’re speaking about. You don’t need to. By the way he stiffens then loosens his hold around you, you know you touch a nerve.

 

Will you get your answer this time? Or will it be shrugged away attached by words he weaves seamlessly together and by the kisses he dances onto your body? You prepare for either one, a slight annoyance ready to pounce on the former, and the arousal heating your loins at the thought of the latter.

 

He kisses the top of your head.

 

With a sigh, he explains it all. He begins speaking about Catalunya, a country that other countries don’t recognize. He relates to you about his concerns about independence and all those who stand in his people’s way. He talks about Barca, but neither about the team he’s played for nor the ones he coached. He describes a bar set too high, of a shadow of his own creation, and of the memories of a second father.

 

His heart quickens when he speaks about eating lunch with a childhood friend. His loses breath when he talks about debating a turncoat. He talks about a night, alone on the famous bunkers of Barcelona, of a view that showcases the city lights and how watching the sunset there is like rising from the ashes.

He says that he’ll take you there one day.

 

\---

 

Only a few candles light the room, soft music plays in the background, the blinds are closed, and you’re heavily breathing while lying on the bed. You watch him, anticipation growing; as he slowly takes off his jacket first, next his sweater, and then one little button by little button on his shirt.

 

You tell him to hurry the hell up. This makes him laugh, your impatience always does, and he shakes his head. He chooses to get on the bed, makes sure your legs are between his, eating you up with those calculating eyes of his. He touches his belt, a laugh escapes him again, and he removes his hand from it.

 

You roll your eyes at his ridiculous showmanship. You are about to say something snarky, maybe something mildly insulting too, cause you’re so filled with want that you want to get started rather than be teased. You are ready be the one to take charge, rile him up as much as he has to you, and you’ll throw him on his back and take you both to new heights.

 

But then his hands pull you up. You’re both kneeling. He looks at you, more open than you ever seen him, and he smiles, unabashedly.

 

It’s beautiful. Such freedom on his face is a rarity that part of you wants to find a camera and take picture of it. You don’t though; you just smile along with him and say you love him.

 

He laughs again, kissing you gently on the lips, and says that he loves you more.

 

Barcelona is starting to feel like home to him again. Just like he’s feeling like home to you.

 

You fall together back on the bed, and time, the construct of it, doesn’t exist.

**Author's Note:**

> I might write a Lucho/Reader fic. Hmmm. The possibilities are endless!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
